i purchased steel stakes at Home Depot which are about five feet tall and have holes drilled up the center of the post. Later in the season as the plants begin to stretch - a wooden stick about an inch sq and be added to the post using dry wall screws to attach to the post.. Next when the plants are about two feet high i begin to remove braches off the bottom of the plant plus all suckers so eventually i have no leaves approx two to three feet from the ground up on the plant - I want air movement around the bottom of the plant. This setup is used only on indeterminate tomato plants. Tie the single stem to the stake/stick with small pieces of cloth strips about a foot apart. Using this method i plant my plants fourteen inches apart. Another trick - i use dry wall dust which has calcium on the bed prior to planting - helps i feel in holding down blossom end rot... The dust came from a dry wall installer that uses a wall sander in there work.. My tomatoes can reach the rain gutters on the first floor and then some..

You can grow any variety of tomato without staking or caging, but if you don't, you at least need to put down some newspapers covered with straw or other mulch to keep the fruits from touching the dirt. I used to grow my tomatoes this way but you wind up losing many, many fruits due to rotting. You can also lay a wire fence down horizontally and suspend it ~8 inches above the ground with cinderblocks. The tomato vines will sprawl out onto the top of the wire fence with excellent results. I currently grow my large indeterminate varieties in cages that are 3 feet in diameter and 4 feet tall, with excellent results, and this is what I currently recommend. The cone shaped wire cages are great for the (smaller) determinate varieties. Just remember that healthy tomato plants are huge plants that need a lot of above ground space as well as below ground root space. Good Luck!

I find that I like staking them. I get a 2" x 4" from lumber store and cut it lengthwise can get 4-6 stakes depending how thick you need them i use 8 footers lst summer and my tomato plants grew to 9-12 feet tall. I tied them loosey with twine every 6-8 inches.